Medical Transcription Education
Your Options

Are you ready to explore your medical transcription education options? There are several ways to go about it. See which one of these ideas would be most ideal for you.

How do you "get your foot in the door" to your first job in medical transcription? At first glance, this seems like a classic catch-22 for most people.

• You can't get hired without experience, and
• you can't get experience without getting hired!

You'll notice I said "at first glance". Let's explore just a few of the many ways that you could get a medical transcription education.

Check out the pros and cons of online medical transcription courses
or
The pros and cons of a medical transcription college program

Keep reading below for a discussion of some other ways to break into medical transcription if you have no experience and no training.

There are a few basic requirements you'll need to begin.

You have to have at least a moderate degree of computer proficiency. It may be stating the obvious but, if you have to spend an extensive amount of time trying to figure out how to use the computer, that is less time you'll spend learning medical transcription.

You don't have to be a computer geek, mind you, but a basic familiarity with a home computer is essential. This is true whether you take a course at a local college, an on-line course, or one of the options below.

The other thing you need is above-average grammar skills. This doesn't mean you need to know how to parse a sentence! But it does mean knowing where to put commas, matching tenses, proper use of hyphens, to mention just a few.

There are companies which offer an on-the-job medical transcription education. Finding one of these will require quite a bit of research (and luck) on your part. This usually involves finding a medical transcriptionist who needs help with her accounts and who is willing to train you.

There are also a few companies who offer on-the-job training. Try doing online searches like "medical transcription internships" to find who is offering this option. The few I have come across require above-average typing and grammar skills.

If you have these and are lucky enough to get hired by a company who is willing to train, you have the advantage of getting an on-the-job medical transcription education from an experienced medical transcriptionist. You need to keep in mind that the pay will most probably be minimal, but at least you'll be paid something while you learn.

Finally, there are many medical transcriptionists who started out as medical secretaries. You will need to have the basic skills required to be hired as a secretary but, with the proper medical references, a dedication to accuracy, and a fair amount of speed, you can do well and learn a lot.